Emi screams (well, grabs) for ice cream.

After lunch at Nam Son, Emi, Miya and I walked over to Chinatown Ice Cream Factory for a sweet, cold treat. The Ice Cream Factory is known for its fresh product and its unusual flavors, and this visit didn't disappoint. Miya ordered the lychee, which she shared with an ice cream-crazy Emi.

I ordered the Zen butter, a combination of peanut butter and sesame seeds. It's more sesame-y than peanut-y, but it's 100% delicious. Creamy, cold and satisfying. Rich in a way that we're not really used to when it comes to ice cream, it's dense and nutty, but not even a little bit sweet. Good stuff.

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
65 Bayard (Between Mott and Elizabeth)
212.608.4170

Pho-licious.

Last Friday, I met my friend Miya and her adorable daughter Emi down in Chinatown. Our goal: enjoy some tasty, nourishing pho. Miya's a vegetarian, and my friend Rich (who has excellent taste) had recommended the veggie pho at Nam Son, so that's where we went. And boy, was he right.

I ordered the pho with top round, brisket and tendon, while Miya went for veggie with veggie broth. Both were about six bucks, making them the most ridiculous bargains available. Seriously, these were huge bowls of soup. And they were oh-so-tasty.

My beef pho had a traditional, spice-scented broth. The clove and anise came through loud and clear, emphasized by the rich beefiness of the soup. One of the things I love about broth is the way it can be so rich and yet almost completely devoid of fat. It sucks all the flavor out of the bones and becomes something entirely new. It's almost alchemy.

When it came to the meat, I was particularly fond of the tender brisket. It practially melted in my mouth, and was full to bursting with beef flavor. The tendon wasn't bad, but there was a bit much of it for my taste. I'd much rather have had double the brisket and half the tendon. One only needs so much chewiness. And the noodles were pretty good, too - firm enough to stand up to the hot soup, but still tender.

Miya's veggie version was no slouch, either. Absolutely chock full of veggies and tofu, it was quite a sight to see. We got to work doctoring our bowls with hoisin sauce, Sriracha (for me; none for Miya, since Emi was sharing her noodles), bean sprouts and Thai basil. The doctoring might be the best part, actually - working for your supper, as it were.

Nam Son
245 Grand Street (Between Chrystie and Bowery)
212.966.6507‎

Queenie's Treasury

Happy snowy Saturday, folks! New York is digging out from another big storm this morning, and I'm about to venture out (clad in wellies, natch) to run a zillion and a half errands. Before that, though, it's time for a look at this week's Treasury!

First, a very exciting development in Manhattan's Mexican food scene. Hecho en Dumbo is moving to a new space on the Bowery, just a few short steps from the Bleecker Street stop on the 6 train. Score! I can't wait to try the Berkshire pork tacos with pickled red onion. Don't they look amazing? They open next Friday!

Next, some sad/happy news. The sad part is that, thanks to an incident with a slippery Le Creuset pot full of chicken stew, I am in desperate need of new woven cotton rug for the floor of my kitchen. The happy part is that I get to pick something from Dash & Albert. Their colorful stripes make me happy every time I see them. I'm still not sure which one I'll ultimately choose...any ideas?

Finally, an exciting event is taking place tomorrow! Those crazy kids over at NYC Food Crawls are hosting a pork bun crawl in Manhattan's Chinatown. Sadly, I am otherwise engaged, but I'm keen to recreate the experience on my own one day soon. If you want to meet up with fellow pork bun lovers, head to the intersection of Mulberry and Bayard tomorrow afternoon at 3 PM - and don't forget to report back!

Photo of barbecued pork buns via The Cookbook Chronicles.

Vietnamese penicillin.

Last night, my friends Lisa, Cristin and I headed downtown for a night of girl talk, Vietnamese food, and showtunes. Where the girl talk originated is easy enough to determine, I suppose - the Vietnamese food we found in Chinatown, and the showtunes at a West Village piano bar called Marie's Crisis.

Girl talk and show tunes are all well and good, but what I really want to talk about tonight is pho. Pronounced "fuh," it's considered by many to be the national dish of Vietnam. It's a noodle soup, traditionally with a beef broth, served with piles of fresh herbs, a few citrus wedges, and lots and lots of hot sauce on the side.

Chinatown boasts many Vietnamese restaurants, and there are endless opinions on where the neighborhood's best pho is to be found (See, for example, this eGullet discussion on the topic.). Since I didn't want to determine my companions' meals ahead of time, I thought we'd better head for somewhere where more than just the pho could be vouched for, so we picked Pho Viet Huong on Mulberry, just south of Canal.

We started with some excellent barbecue beef rolls - hot, grilled beef wrapped with lettuce, mint and cilantro - and great spring rolls, hot, bubbly, and bursting with porky, mushroomy flavor. And then, three steaming bowls of pho arrived at the table.

I dosed mine with plenty of Sriracha and dug in, chopsticks in one hand and soup spoon in the other. The broth was fragrant, and there were enough tender rice noodles to feed three Queenies. I ordered a pork version, and the slices of meat bobbed amidst the herbs, just waiting for an extra little dab of hot sauce. Paired with a bottle of Saigon Export, there simply could not be a better cold-weather meal.